Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Page 264

What’s more, Hector feared himself when he was this angry. Most of all, he feared that he might accidentally hurt someone innocent.

So he suppressed the fury, smothered it in his mind until it was only a vague heat, a passenger to his thoughts instead of the driver. And he focused. All that meditation had not just been for imaginary power. At the very least, he knew how to clear his mind.

Hector knew Geoffrey’s power had grown. That was simple enough to deduce. And without Garovel, Hector had no access to regeneration or enhanced strength. But he still had his iron. And he sure as fuck wasn’t about to run away. Iron alone would have to do.

He arrived at the school, taking the side entrance into the building. His helm drew strange looks as he rushed through the halls. There were not as many students as usual, but searching was still a chore. He tried to be both quick and thorough, eyeing people carefully, searching for the vacant expression of a puppet.

Then he heard a series of shrieks and ran toward them. A group of students were fleeing from a long streak of blood that snaked into the boy’s bathroom.

He walked in on a scene of three people crouching over another. Crimson stains were everywhere. Hector recognized the dead body on the floor. Micah Chamberlain. The three people on top of him looked up in unison. All obviously puppets. Bloodied, ripped flesh hung from their lips.

“There you are,” one of them said for Geoffrey, spitting out a red gob. “I’m in the teacher’s lounge. Come meet me, and then we can--”

And they were completely encased in iron, all three at once, thick enough to render them entirely immobilized.

Dude. My heart's seriously going a mile a minute. My hands are shaking. I keep remembering how I asked to spare the twins. Now it just feels like that request came at the cost of nearly every named character in Hector's neighborhood.

I have a bad feeling that Geoffrey is gonna be a persistent antagonist throughout the whole story... I think that's a mistake in these kinds of stories... Just having one stale villain forever... It's bad because it makes the story predictable in that the bad guy will always get away.

You made a story in which the good guy doesn't always keep everyone important to him, and that's a good thing because it keeps the story unpredictable. However, you fell right into a trap at the other end of the spectrum of making an unkillable antagonist....